5 Articles to Evoke Emotions with Strong Descriptions

Animal – Old dog. labrador retriever macro shot.Photo © mythja | Deposit Photos

This week, most of the construction across the street seems to be finished, except for some clean-up. However, on Friday, from my window near my writing desk, I looked outside and a small backhoe was on the front lawn. Two men in construction hardhats were setting up a v-of fence line. Something will be happening in the next week…probably much jack hammering and squeaky tractor wheels.

Yeah, I’m dragging out my noise-canceling headphones.

All the construction has been driving out the local animals. I’ve had a huge increase in sightings of chipmunks and rabbits. Not as many squirrels.  They must be staying in the trees, nibbling on their acorns.

Story-wise,  I hit a stuck point in a scene I was writing and couldn’t figure out why. I finally watched Becca Syme’s video on Certainty Templates and understood immediately why I was stuck. I kept thinking “Move the story forward.” The problem? There’s a lot of emotion that will be coming into those forward scenes. I needed to work on the emotion in the previous two chapters more than I was to set it all up.

Sometimes learning new stuff is challenging!

So this week I have links for you on descriptions and emotions. I dug deep for this; the earliest one is from 1927 (a caveat: If you roam the old magazines, there may be some language issues).

1. Eye color as a shortcut to characterization by Frank Ernest Nicholas. Writer’s Digest 1927-08: Vol 7 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. I liked this one because it’s not something you’d ordinarily think about. He also discusses how to blend eye color for different character effects. My only issue with the article? My eye color is not on the list. I wonder exactly what that says…

2 and 3. A part of articles called Words that Kill by Francies H. Ames and Words that Save by  Leonard Snyder.  Writer’s Digest 1950-12: Vol 31 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. The articles are set but are poorly formatted. They might have been easier to read in the paper version, but it’ll take some navigating to figure them out in e-format. The Kill article explains how adjectives go wrong and why. That’s better than all the advice that advocates simply getting rid of them, and thus robbing your ability to create emotion. The Save article explains how to add emotional words to your story.

4. Working with Words by Thomas M, Uzzell Writer’s Digest 1927-08: Vol 7 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive Read all the way through. The really interesting stuff comes near the end of the article.

5. And if you want samples of overwrought description, see Pet Peeve #2 in Writer’s Digest 1955-10: Vol 35 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (Most of the 24 are pretty dated. I felt my eyes crossing with the lavender typewriter ribbon. Why?!).

Next week, I’ll return to the Ginormous Guide Adding Emotions to Fiction with setting and five senses.

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